Are souls made of investiture?

[Arandomclone5555]

This is a topic that has confused me because there seem to be a lot of conflicting sources in the books. In Yumi, the father machine was made to consume the spirits, investiture entities, and it ended up consuming the souls of humanity. This would imply that souls are made of investiture, and nightblood also seems to support this as he consumes investiture but also seems to consume the soul. However, my main problem with this is cognitive shadows. Using Vasher’s explanation of how they work, he says that the investiture someone holds before the die, or in some cases if they were invested right after they die, then the investiture replaces them like a fossil. This seems to contradict everything else that is stated about souls and seems to imply that they are made of a different substance, and this is what actually goes to the beyond upon death. But if the soul is different from investiture and it’s related to the beyond, how are shards like Preservation, who themselves state they have no way of accessing the beyond, have the capability of creating beings that have souls that go to the beyond? I’m really confused and I’m sure I'm misunderstanding something, if someone has any better explanations or theories please tell me.

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Arandomclone5555 said:

This is a topic that has confused me because there seem to be a lot of conflicting sources in the books. In Yumi, the father machine was made to consume the spirits, investiture entities, and it ended up consuming the souls of humanity. This would imply that souls are made of investiture, and nightblood also seems to support this as he consumes investiture but also seems to consume the soul. However, my main problem with this is cognitive shadows. Using Vasher’s explanation of how they work, he says that the investiture someone holds before the die, or in some cases if they were invested right after they die, then the investiture replaces them like a fossil. This seems to contradict everything else that is stated about souls and seems to imply that they are made of a different substance, and this is what actually goes to the beyond upon death. But if the soul is different from investiture and it’s related to the beyond, how are shards like Preservation, who themselves state they have no way of accessing the beyond, have the capability of creating beings that have souls that go to the beyond? I’m really confused and I’m sure I'm misunderstanding something, if someone has any better explanations or theories please tell me.

Keep in mind that part of this answer is, specifically, left unanswered by Brandon for readers to decide for themselves. WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

So, if Nightblood, unsheathed, killed someone, would their soul still go to the Beyond?

Brandon Sanderson

So, that's gonna be a matter of-- There's gonna be disagreement in the cosmere about that. Nobody has been able to actively test it, because there are certain things you can see, but there are people who are actively discussing this concept.

Questioner

So, no one knows for sure?

Brandon Sanderson

Nobody knows for sure. And I'll just leave it at that. It's an astute question that even Vasher has-- Vasher has his thoughts, but he does not have a definitive answer, and others disagree with him.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 21, 2017)

Quote

Questioner

In Stormlight, Dalinar mentioned that <if he can die, he's no longer a god>, so to speak. And throughout the cosmere, gods died *inaudible*. Is there an omniscient, omnipotent, actual God in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Is there an omniscient, omnipotent God in the cosmere? Some people believe that there is. You guys laugh about this, but I don't mean it to be a laughing thing. There are certain questions I will not answer in the cosmere, specifically because it would too much undermine some of the characters' beliefs. And I want to treat characters respectfully. So whether there is life after you pass into the Beyond, and whether there is a God of gods, an omnipotent, as we would define "monotheistic God," are questions that I don't answer, and I let the characters deal with. Because if I answer that, then the character discussions about this are meaningless. Not really, but they kind of are. So there are a couple things I won't answer about the cosmere, because the characters don't have these answers.

Questioner

<Do you know the answer>?

Brandon Sanderson

I know the answer, yes.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

Quote

Questioner

After people die, in this universe, where exactly do they go? Because, at first they appear in this one world, and then they go somewhere else.

Brandon Sanderson

So where do people go when they die. *laughter* In the cosmere. One of the things that's very important to me as a writer, when I am writing stories, is when we get to these kind of fundamental questions about faith and religion and things like this, that the narrative is allowing multiple characters' viewpoints to be plausibly true, if this makes sense. For instance, I am not gonna come out and say, "Is there a capital-G God of the cosmere, is there an afterlife?" These are not questions I'm gonna answer, because in-world, they can't answer them. What they can say is, your Investiture will leave what we call a Cognitive Shadow, which is an imprint of your personality that can do certain things. And that most of those fade away, and you can see them, glimpse them, and then watch them go. But, are they going somewhere? Or are they not? Is that simply the Investiture being reclaimed, Is it more of a Buddhist thought, where your soul is getting recycled and used again? Is it nothing, you return to, you know, being-- yeah, is it a different type of matter? Or is there a Beyond, is there a capital-G God? Things like this. These questions are not answered. I'm never gonna answer those.

Now, the characters will try to answer them. But it's important to me that both Dalinar and Jasnah can exist in the same universe, and that the story is not saying "This one is right, and this one is wrong." The story is saying "This is how this one sees the world; this is how this one sees the world." It's very important to me from the beginning to do that, just because-- Like, I hate reading a book where someone espouses my viewpoint only to get proven wrong by the entire structure of the narrative, and in that universe, that person is wrong. But I'm like, "In our universe, I don't think that I am. Just the way you constructed everything makes it so that I have to be wrong, if I were living in your universe, even if it's a universe that's not a sci-fi/fantasy one." If that makes sense.

This is just kind of for respecting my characters and for the people who hold the viewpoints of my characters, in particular if they happen to be different from my own viewpoints. I feel there are certain lines I'm not gonna cross.

So, the answer is: who do you believe? Which of the philosophies in the books do you look at and say "Yeah!" Or, even better: listen to lots of different ones, and maybe these different viewpoints are all gonna have interesting points that'll give you things to think upon.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

So, objectively, we know there is a Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. We know that it is consumed by Nightblood and Father Machine. We know that Sazed and Kelsier believe that Vin and Elend went to the Beyond after the events of HoA.

Furthermore, we know that some people call what is consumed by Nightblood "the soul" - while some people call what goes Beyond "the soul."
Who is right?

Brandon wants readers to decide for themeselves. He will never answer that question. 

Hope that helps

Edited June 6 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Frustration]

Answer: Yes souls are made from Investiture. There isn't any question about this.

 

What Zahel was referring to there was his personal belief that Cognitive Shadows are not the original person, but investiture that acts like them. Which other people might dispute.

Spoiler

Khyrindor

You've said that Returned count as Cognitive shadows "stapled" back into their bodies, and that the Heralds are at least similar. Would I be right in assuming that Elantrians could be considered as Cognitive Shadows as well, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Brandon Sanderson

Elantrians are something different. They don't actually "die" to be created.

Recognize that the term Cognitive Shadow is an in-cosmere theory, which I'm not going to comment on as the creator of the setting. The theory is this:

Investiture seeks sapience. It looks for someone to control it or, in some instances, spontaneously adopts personality.

A mind (Cognitive aspect of a person) can become infused with Investiture. This acts a little like minerals with petrified wood, replacing the mind and personality with investiture.

When the actual person dies, this investiture imprint remains behind. A copy of the soul, but not the actual soul.

Others disagree with this, and think the soul itself persists. Still others reject the theory in its entirety.

linkhyrule5

Huh.

... Kandra are almost literally stapled to their bodies with Hemalurgy - would they count as such, to the in-setting scholars?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they wouldn't. They are beings who have had their souls twisted by Hemalurgy--the soul never left, it's just been messed up. Someone else who has a soul stapled to a body with Hemalurgy would count though.

Stormlight Three Update #6 (Jan. 20, 2017)

 

[Schizoposting]

Magic in the Cosmere is just another form of matter, so saying that investiture is the source of consciousness is philosophically no different from saying that it's the result of neural synapses—as such, it has nothing to do with the philosophy of mind, and questions like the nature of Cognitive Shadows, are left to the reader.